Paul Saffo recently gave a talk to the Long Now
Foundation entitled: Paul Saffo recently gave a talk to the
Long
Now Foundation entitled: “Secret’s to effective
forecasting.’ In it, Saffo argued that “inflection points are
tiptoeing past us all the time.” To make his point, he used the
example of how no robotic cars finished the DARPA Grand Challenge in 2004, but all 23 cars
started and finished the race just a year later. (For readers
interested in a more in-depth look at this exponential-like
progress, I’d recommend this old post).
Saffo went on to advise forecasters to look for things that
don’t fit. Using the earlier example, he noted how at the same time
robotic cars were achieving their extraordinary progress; there was
a massive 108 car pile-up of “human-driven” automobiles on a
highway in California. Saffo’s point was that the two events point
to a possible future scenario whereby robotic-driven cars become
more feasible.
Well, I recently had a similar experience but instead of noting
the progress in robotic cars, I have witnessed a flurry of articles
documenting the amazing amount of progress being made in the field
of surgical robots, and this progress juxtapositions nicely against
the news suggesting that there is a
growing shortage of trained health care professionals to serve
America’s growing geriatric populations. (cont.)
One of my favorite quotes comes from Kurt Yeager who once said:
“In periods of profound change the most dangerous thing is to
incrementalize yourself into the future.” I was reminded of
this quote because although I often speak to businesses about the
future of technology, I frequently encounter push back from
executives who are mostly interested in identifying ways to
incrementally improve their businesses or products. In short, they
are looking for improvements in the range of 10%.
I constantly remind them, however, that we are no longer living
in an era of linear growth – a 10% improvement might have been
sufficient to keep them competitive in the past, but it is no
strategy if they desire to be in business in 10 years. To achieve
that goal, they must be on the lookout for how 10X improvements
will transform their business. (Ray Kurzweil, in this excellent editorial , also
emphasizes this point.)
To this end, I recently came across a couple of articles that
highlight this point. The first addresses how a number of researchers are looking to increase data storage by “a
factor of a hundred.” It is difficult to contemplate how a 100X
improvement in data storage might transform education, media,
advertising and even health care, but it is imperative that
professionals in these fields start thinking along these lines
immediately. (cont.)
The future of computing has many different aspects and it is not
my intention with this post to provide a detailed explanation of
each. Rather, I merely want to share with readers who are
interested in the future of computing some interesting and
provocative resources.
For those looking for a broad-based overview of how computers
will change our lives, I highly recommend this detailed report by
Microsoft Research entitled “Being
Human: Human-Computer Interaction in the Year 2020.” The second
chapter, in particular, is very insightful and documents five major
transformations: 1) The End of Interface Stability; 2) The Growth
of Techno-Dependancy; 3) The Growth of Hyper-Connectivity; 4) The
End of Ephemeral; and 5) the Growth of Creative Engagement.
For readers seeking a slightly more technical understanding of
where computers are headed, I’d recommend this press release by
Gartner, Inc. It covers a number of “grand challenges” which will dramatically
alter how future computers operate and are used.
Succinctly, the major changes are:
1. Never having to manually recharge devices.
2. Parallel Programming.
3. Non-tactile, Natural Computing Interfaces. (This corresponds
with the Microsoft report.)
4. Automated Speech Translation
5. Persistent and Reliable Long-Term Storage; and
6. Increasing Programmer Productivity 100-fold.
Now, I’m no brain surgeon, but I have followed the progress that
Intuitive Surgical has been making in the
field of robotic-assisted prostectomies, and it might interest you
to know that in 2005 the company was performing less 1% of all
prostectomies. Today, it is performing over 50%!
The reason this is occurring is because the da Vinci robot (which is still
controlled by a surgeon using a computer) is so precise that the
surgery is only minimally invasive, and this allows the patient to
leave the hospital in one to two days. Patients who have a
traditional operation must stay five to seven days. Of course, this
extra stay costs hospitals a great deal of money and they now have
a vested interest in switching patients over to the robotic-asisted
surgery. Not surprisingly, convincing patients to undergo a
robotic-assisted operation has been made easier because they are
not only told the scar will be much smaller but they will also get
out of the hospital much sooner.
The NeuroArm and similar neurosurgical robots are the wave of
the future. They may not be performing many operations today, but
my guess is that just as Intuitive Surgical’s Da Vinci robots now
control the prostectomy market, neurosurgical robots will contol
the brain surgery market in 5 to 10 years.
If you are so inclined, I recommend the following 10-minute
video from Wired Science which shows how the da Vinci robot is now
beginning to assist with heart surgery: (cont.)
Earlier this year, I had to go to a local hospital and have a
laproscopic procedure to repair an inguinal hernia. The operation
went well and I was quizzed no fewer than six times about the
nature and location of my surgery . (Apparently, they wanted to
ease any concern I had about them operating on the wrong organ or
the wrong side.)
The only hassle occurred after my surgery when I was detained
for over an hour because the doctor failed to sign-off on my
prescription medicine. I mention this information because it is
symptomatic of the inefficiencies that continue to plague our
health care system.
There is, however, hope on the way. Recently in the
Minneapolis Star Tribune there was an informative article
entitled “Take two aspirin
and e-mail me in the morning.” It discussed the enormous
opportunity that exists within the health care system to save time
and money if only more doctors (and patients) would agree to
electronic consultations.
Now, no one is suggesting that personal doctor-to-patient
meetings should be eliminated altogether, but as one doctor is
quoted as saying “90% of what we do is not based on physical
assessments.” In other words, much of a doctor’s business can be
conducted electronically – at a substantially lower cost and in a
manner that is more convenient for the patient. As proof, the
article cites one innovative clinic in Portland, Oregon which is
now treating 40% of its patients by e-mail. (cont.)
Last fall, I had the opportunity to give the keynote
presentation at the Wisconsin Hospital Association’s annual
meeting. The title of my talk was “The Future of Health Care.” At
the behest of the conference organizer, I provided an advance copy
of my presentation so that they could make copies for the
participants. The only problem was that the organizers asked for my
presentation a few weeks in advance and the pace of technological
change – especially as it relates to the health care industry – is
so rapid that I was compelled to update a number of slides prior to
my talk.
As proof of the accelerating pace of technological change, I’d
like to just walk you through a few weeks of technological and
scientific advancement in the health care industry. In October,
researchers at Chonnam National University in Korea announced that
they had created a microscopic
robot small enough to travel through blood vessels. The robot
is so capable that once it is inside a blocked artery it is able to
release drugs to dissolve blood clots. According to this 2007 study, deaths from severe heart attacks
after hospital admission have already been halved in the past six
years. As a result of advances such as this microscopic robot, it
is reasonable to believe that we will continue to make even more
progress.
In early November, researchers at the Institute for Advanced
Bioscience in Tusuroka, Japan successfully demonstrated that they
had used inkjet printers to “print” human
stem cells. The significance of this advance is that society is
now one step closer to creating implantable organs. (cont.)
I know, I know … agriculture is already a high-tech industry. I
don’t necessarily disagree with the sentiment, but the industry is
going to witness even more technoligical innovation in the near
future and if farmers want to remain in business they need to stay
abreast of major developments in a number of different fields.
For example, this article from yesterday’s New York Times
briefly profiles Phytech, an Israeli company, which is placing sensors
on fruit trees and other crops to provide real-time information to
farmers. As the price of next-generation sensors continue to drop,
farmers can expect to employ sensors to do everything from
determine how much water a crop needs to deciding what the optimum
amount of a pesticide that needs to be applied in order to do the
job..
As advances in genomics continue, the agriculture industry will
be further transformed. (For a more detailed look into genomics and
agriculture, I’d recommend this old post.) NatureNews, for example, is running an
interesting article describing how researchers have tweaked
the E Coli bacteria to hunt down atrazine—a widely used herbicide .
The significance of this development is that soon a major
environmental issue for farmers could be resolved because designer
bacteria may prevent a variety of pesticides and herbicides from
seeping into the groundwater and polluting sources downstream.
The agriculture industry will also continue to change for
another major reason—both land and crops will be soon be an
important source of energy. The opportunity in biofuels and wind
production is already established, but this is just the start.
(cont.)
There was a picture from yesterday’s NY Times article entitled
My Life in a Video and it shows a
dancer with a variety of sensors embedded in her leotard. Among
other things these sensors can automatically control music to
correspond with her dance tempo.
To be sure, it is a cool technology and I’m sure it will soon be
showing up in some avant garde theatres; I, however, would
encourage you to think even more broadly about how embedded sensors
and RFID tags will soon transform our
lives.
To do so, I invite you to read these two recent articles. The
first is from Roland Piquepaille over at ZDNET and he explains how researchers at the
University of Washington have deployed 200 antennas (RFID readers)
to track the movements and activities of 12 students.
I would also encourage you to watch the six minute YouTube clip
posted below. It is a little academic at times, but toward the end
you will witness two exciting applications. In the first, a student
hears a song that a colleague is listening to and he is able to
instantly download it to his cellphone. In the second, the same
student downloads information from a wall poster. (At a minimum,
this latter application holds great relevance for advertisers and
retailers who might soon be able to employ the technology to
download electronic coupons to consumers as a means of either
enticing them to purchase the product or, at least, receive more
information about it).
I recently finished reading James Burke’s excellent book,
“Connections,” in which he explains how a
myriad of seemingly unrelated advances in technology helped to
create new technologies and how these technologies, in turn, often
lead to changes in societal behavior. For anyone interested in the
future, I highly recommend reading the book because if it teaches
us anything—it is that the future will unfold in unexpected ways.
At the risk of sounding like a nitpicker, I would like to take
objection with just one of Burke’s main points and that is his idea
that the only way to look at the future is through the past. To
this point, I’d offer two quotes from the book. The first is:
“Anyways, there is nowhere else to look for the future but in
the past” and the second is: “Why should we look to the past
in order to prepare for the future? Because there is nowhere else
to look.”
In a general way, I agree with the sentiment and that is why I
dedicated an entire chapter (“Back to the Future”) in my new book to this idea. (In fact, I am
now contemplating writing an entire book on this theme).
Nevertheless, I don’t agree that the past is the only way
to study and understand the future. I also believe that science
fiction offers an alternative way to think about the future. Among
the best thinkers of how new technologies will transform societal
behavior are science fiction writers. This is because they are not
merely obsessed with technology for technology’s sake, they seek to
understand how it will also influence and change people’s thinking
and behavior.
With oil over a $100 a barrel and some analysts predicting it’ll
go as high as $300, it is easy to think that the future will be
more expensive than today. I, however, have a decidedly different
take on the future, I believe it is going to be cheap—very
cheap.
On another front, Applied Bioscience recently reported that it sequenced the genome of a
Nigerian man for $60,000. It was only a few years ago that Craig
Venter sequenced his genome at a cost of $70 million and, last
year, James Watson spent $2 million sequencing his genome. In the
not-so-distant future, there is an excellent chance we will all
have our genomes sequenced for less than $1000.
